Flu shots include swine flu vaccine

Flu shots for 2010 have a new special ingredient: H1N1 vaccination. Wardenburg has ordered at least 1,000 flu shot vaccines this year for their annual flu shot clinic, officials said.

“This is woefully few for the amount of population we have,” said Sandra Sonoda, an infection control nurse at Wardenburg.

Wardenburg is holding a flu clinic on Oct. 13 and 14 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the UMC. The flu shot will cost $25, Sonoda said.

Sonoda said she worried about college students catching the disease particularly because of the crowded college lifestyle.

“I think in this population you guys are always in congregate settings, the dorms, the UMC…and it’s really, really difficult to control the spread of flu,” she said.

Heather Collis, the marketing coordinator for Wardenburg, said the health center probably won’t campaign against swine flu as much as last year, unless there’s a major outbreak.

“We’re going to give out the vaccine and do some swine flu education but that’s pretty much it,” Collis said.

Sonoda said the flu vaccine’s recent combination with the swine flu vaccine should have been done last year, but the timing of the vaccine production made it impossible.

“The regular flu shot was already in production when they figured out that H1N1 was going to be the predominant flu strain,” she said. “It would’ve delayed the [regular] flu vaccine if they had combined the two last year.”

Last year the Wardenburg staff canceled the first couple of flu clinics because they didn’t get the vaccine in time.

“Last year it was so difficult to see sick people; we could only see people with underlying illnesses,” she said. “That was horrible because we didn’t know when the vaccine was coming.”

Chelsea Newman, an 18-year-old freshman speech, language and hearing sciences major, said she never thinks about getting the vaccine.

“I’ve never gotten [the vaccine] but I’ve never had the flu,” Newman said.

Kylee Wasechek, a 21-year-old senior integrative physiology and psychology double major, said she wouldn’t get the flu shot unless her insurance covered it.

“My mom usually encourages me to get it,” Wasechek said. “I get the flu probably every other year.”

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Julie Ryan at Ryanja@colorado.edu.